I (hope that I) made a difference in somebody's life.
I'm back from a 2 week tour (last weeks of July 2022) with 'Together We Can Change The World'. A charity founded by the amazing Scott Friedman, CSP and Jana Stanfield. The mission and approach of TWCCTW fits perfectly in my alley of a professional speaker. TWCCTW empowers and educates women and children in South East Asia to live a better life.
For the participants on the tour, they focus on professional speakers who want to give something back to the world - because next to visiting the charities & interacting with the kids, parents, teachers, ... - TWCCTW organises 1 or 2 bigger events for local business people. During these two weeks we visited several charity partners in Singapore, Malaysia and Cambodia.
Everybody who joins the tour donates an amount of money to participate and you pay for your flights and most of the lodging. In that way we can maximise the amount of money going to the charities. TWCCTW operates in 5 countries (Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar) and they have a very good, transparent relationship with local charities where the money is going to.
Slideshow with some of the pictures & movies at the different charities
It's an absolute privilege to be able to see the projects where the money is going. It's really heart touching to see how enthusiastically the kids are when they take part in a dental program (where the teachers explain how they should brush their teeth and all get a toothbrush. Or see some of the wells that were sponsored by TWCCTW in remote villages. Or being able to literally provide food on one morning to 400 children. The smiles that you get when they get a banana as a dessert is heart breaking. And of course you get a chance to play with those kids, do silly games, do funny dances, ...
Those were the highlights for me. I hope that my contribution could help to make a difference in the live sof those kids and families. And yes, it is an investment in money and time but you get so much back. And you have the chance to deliver a speech for a larger event in those countries.
I had the chance to deliver a speech with 500+ business leaders from Kuala Lumpur - together with 8 other global speakers. A great opportunity for us to broaden our network and get visibility in a new country and the audience has a chance to have a great line up of international speakers.
Short 10 second snippet from my presentation at the Malaysia Leadership Forum
I have decided that I will donate 5% of all my revenues to charities (TWCCTW will be the biggest charity that I will support next to some environmental charities). If you read this blog, that means that you're in my network and there's a chance of 99% that you have a laptop, access to water, a roof, an abundance of food choices, and so many many more opportunities that most of these kids and families don't have. I'm not going to ask you for any money ut I hope this blog will inspire you to become conscious of the super luxury situation you're in. Enjoy this moment and share a smile with the next person you see. And if you can't resist to make a (small) donation, I'm not going to stop you ;-)
Big thanks to my fellow tour members: Scott Friedman, Jana Stanfield, Jonathan Low, Merit Kahn, Jeff Civillico, Yana Fry, George Walther and all the people who made it possible to create this amazing trip.